50th Wedding Anniversary

Not mine.

From what I gather Japanese people aren't real keen on wedding anniversaries. That is, they don't make a big deal about them in front of others and most times you never even know when a friend's or relative's wedding anniversary is. Unless you ask.

Luckily my brother-in-law asked his parents when theirs was and when they said this week he asked what year did it happen to be. That's how we learned my in-laws are celebrating their 50th this month. We learned this two weeks ago.

My brother-in-law let us know and asked us to rent a tatami-mat room at a fancy restaurant and he and his new wife would drive into town and we'd surprise them. I'll blog next week about 150 dollar per person (drinks not included) meals and selling a kidney to afford them. But that will be next week and at least you'll get photos of a very fancy meal.

My husband is a very laid back guy. Seriously. We're totally opposites. I'm always spazzing out all the time and he's always mellow. He's also fairly low maintenance, doesn't really demand much. So when he offhandedly mentioned we should perform a song (as a family, the three of us) for his parents, I kind of took him seriously. Well, not at first.

But then for several days I found him on the Internet looking up oldies his parents would know, printing out lyrics/chord changes, and posting them on the wall. Okay, maybe he's serious, I thought. He tried to persuade us over dinner one night, but J is so busy with studying for his high school entrance exams and I'm just about worthless on any instrument (even worse singing) that we both nodded and laughed off the idea. And he didn't bring it up again.

I noticed he was a little blue and he kept playing the same song over and over on his bass. That's when I realized he really was serious. We'll do it.

Okay, I said, what's the song?

M took out a CD and played "Sugar Baby Love" by The Rubettes. If you've never heard it or have forgotten it, remember I can't sing "Happy Birthday" in tune and give this video a quick look. Three seconds should do it.





I said, who is going to sing the falsetto? He said, you are.

I said, let's look for another song. He said, anything they know and you think you can sing will be fine.

I finally decided on "Love Me Tender" by Elvis. Okay, I'm sure I'll muck this one up too, but I'll muck it up a lot less that "Sugar Baby Love




Then suddenly M said we need to have two songs in case they give us an encore. He picked "Can't Help Falling in Love", another Elvis goodie. I really like that one. Still can't sing it, but I like the part where the lyrics go, "shall I stay".

Here we are with a little less than a week before our big gig. M's on bass, J's on guitar and I'll be handling vocals. Today I bought some tambourines at the 100 yen store. I'll pass them out before the show.

That was the plan.

The above was written yesterday. Today I caught my husband on the couch like this.


Yes. He has tied a tambourine to his leg.




I have to post this. I was just asked if I would pick up another tambourine so he could put one on the other leg too. Oh, dear.

I will try to get a video or at the very least an audio recording of the hot mess that it is sure to be. Or if it turns out well we might be touring in a town near you.